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Preview data: all rankings, scores, votes, refresh labels, methodology, testing and editorial-process statements in Top 49 are illustrative demo content, not live measurements or documented reviews.
Rank 101Up 1
#10 in Greatest Olympians
of 16 ranked entries
Paavo Nurmi
Track & Field · Finland
“The Flying Finn” won nine golds across the 1920, 1924 and 1928 Games, at one point winning five golds at a single Olympics in 1924 in events ranging from 1500m to cross-country. Recorded specifics: country Finland, first games 1920, olympic golds 9. Panel highlighted 9 Olympic golds across three Games, 5 golds at the single 1924 Paris Olympics and set world records across a remarkable range of distances. The reservation on record is barred from the 1932 Games by amateurism disputes, cutting his Olympic story short.
Track & Field
Score breakdown
How Paavo Nurmi earned 82.5
Each criterion is scored independently, then combined using the weights published on Greatest Olympians.
- Peak Olympic dominanceweight 30%
- 83.0
- Medal haul & goldsweight 30%
- 84.4
- Longevity across Gamesweight 20%
- 80.1
- Legacy & influence on the Gamesweight 20%
- 81.5
On the record
Recorded detail
| Country | Finland |
|---|---|
| First Games | 1920 |
| Olympic golds | 9 |
| Rating | 8.9 |
Panel verdict
Strengths and reservations
What it gets right
- 9 Olympic golds across three Games
- 5 golds at the single 1924 Paris Olympics
- Set world records across a remarkable range of distances
Where it gives ground
- Barred from the 1932 Games by amateurism disputes, cutting his Olympic story short
1 appearance
Where this entry ranks
From the same list
Ranked alongside it
Rank 01Editor’s pickMichael Phelps
Swimming · United States · 2000–2016
Twenty-eight Olympic medals, twenty-three of them gold — both records by margins that make the runner-up look distant. Eight golds at a single Games in Beijing 2008 is unlikely ever to be threatened.
98.0/100 Top 49 score—No change
Rank 02Editor’s pickLarisa Latynina
Gymnastics · Soviet Union
Eighteen total Olympic medals across 1956, 1960 and 1964 held the all-sport record for forty-eight years until Phelps finally passed it in 2012. Nine of those medals are gold.
97.6/100 Top 49 score2Up 2
Rank 03Editor’s pickUsain Bolt
Track & Field · Jamaica · 2002–2017
Ran 9.58 seconds for 100 metres in Berlin in 2009, a mark nobody has come within a tenth of since. Won gold in the 100m and 200m at three consecutive Olympics, a sprint double no one had repeated even once before him.
95.6/100 Top 49 score2Down 2
Rank 04Simone Biles
Gymnastics · United States · 2013–present
Skills across three different apparatuses now carry her name in the Code of Points, a level of risk no other gymnast has landed successfully in competition. The most decorated gymnast in World Championship history, full stop.
93.6/100 Top 49 score2Up 2
Rank 05Mark Spitz
Swimming · United States
Seven golds at a single Games — Munich 1972 — every one of them in world-record time, a single-Olympics standard that stood alone until Phelps’s eight in 2008. Two more golds from 1968 round out a genuinely dominant career.
90.6/100 Top 49 score4Down 4
Rank 06Nadia Comăneci
Gymnastics · Romania
Scored gymnastics’ first-ever perfect 10 at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, at 14, on a scoreboard that literally was not built to display a four-digit score. Five Olympic golds across two Games followed the moment that made her famous.
89.4/100 Top 49 score1Down 1
Rank 07Carl Lewis
Track & Field · United States · 1979–1996
Nine Olympic golds across four Games, matching the mark Paavo Nurmi set in the 1920s, built on a long jump win streak that ran a full decade unbeaten.
87.3/100 Top 49 score2Up 2
Rank 08Jesse Owens
Track & Field · United States · 1933–1936
Won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, in front of a regime staging the Games as a showcase of Aryan supremacy. The political weight of that performance still outstrips the athletic one, and the athletic one alone would be legendary.
85.5/100 Top 49 score1Down 1
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